About Us

Are you ready to find out if your brain is blocking you from losing weight?

OUR STORY

The seed of Bright Line Eating was planted in the deep stillness of Susan’s morning meditation on January 26th, 2014. The mandate from the universe was to write a book called Bright Line Eating to share the secrets of getting Happy, Thin, and Free with the world…

Susan was already in the habit of waking up at 5:00 a.m. to meditate and then take phone calls in 15-minute time-slots from the people she was helping to lose weight and get free from food addiction. But the very next morning, Susan set her alarm for 4:25 a.m. so she could be at her computer at 4:30 a.m. writing the book proposal for Bright Line Eating. After a couple of months of writing, she discovered that she needed a “platform” to have a shot at her book becoming a bestseller. She didn’t even know what a platform was. Discouraged, but determined not to give up, she knew she had to figure out the best way to grow a following. She was becoming more and more convinced that, with her Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, her years teaching a college course on the Psychology of Eating, and her decades of experience as a recovering food addict, she was in possession of a unique blend of knowledge and experience that the world needed and wanted to hear.

On August 5th, 2014, Susan started the Bright Line Eating email list and began sending out emails on a regular basis. The content was so novel, refreshing, and transformative that it started to spread rapidly. The first Bright Line Eating Boot Camp opened for registration in October of 2014. Susan capped the class size at 40 because she didn’t know if she could handle any more than that—she was still a tenured professor teaching full time, she was serving as the Assistant Chair of the Psychology Department, and she had three children under the age of seven. The first Boot Camp sold out and was a roaring success. Some of those original Campers are featured in our Goal Weight Gallery. Go check out some of their stories.

Very quickly, Susan found herself totally swamped by the correspondence and the amount of work it was taking to run Bright Line Eating. Her dear friend Chris Davis saw the toll the late nights and early mornings were taking on Susan’s physical and mental health, expressed concern, and asked if she could help in any way. On December 21st, 2014, Chris became the first full-time BLE employee. Susan had also been working with a web developer named Steven Gomez, who eventually came on full-time in April of 2015. In June of 2015, Julia Harold became the third full-time employee, and after the Food Freedom Boot Camp in October of 2015, with 2,000+ Boot Campers to serve, our ranks simply exploded. In line with our high-touch values, our biggest departments are in customer support and program delivery, but we of course also have people in marketing, project management, research, operations, and much more. Our team is now 23 strong, and as tight-knit and loving a bunch as you could ever hope to meet.

Our Values

UNSTOPPABILITY (Yes, we’ve coined the word.)
In Bright Line Eating, you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to be unstoppable.

INTEGRITY
We show up completely and authentically. We own our actions. We strive to do right by you.

ACCEPTANCE
We meet you wherever you’re at. No matter who you are or what you carry, bring it here.

GENEROSITY
Open-hearted giving is our way. We’re generous with our time, attention, support, and resources. And every now and then we’ll knock your socks off.

COMMUNITY & SERVICE
Through helping others, we help ourselves. We’re doing together what we could never do alone—celebrating, empowering, and sharing with one another every day.

FREEDOM
Freedom to eat in alignment with our intentions. Freedom to move through the world in a right-sized body. Freedom to live our true, authentic lives. Freedom to soar.

We do what we do because we’re on a mission to demonstrate that Bright Line Eating is the most effective weight loss solution in the world…and we’re amassing the data to prove it. We’re determined to spread the word far and wide so that anyone, anywhere, who is truly ready and willing to lose all their excess weight and keep it off long-term will have a proven roadmap that ensures their success.

Susan often comments that when she first started, her main passion was simply helping people to get Happy, Thin, and Free. She’d experienced so much pain in her life from years of bondage to addictive eating that she was on a mission to help as many people as she could to find freedom. These days, she’s surprised to note that growing and leading a world-class team has become an equally powerful mission.

Our core value, without a doubt, is love. We love what we’re doing and we’re here to help people. Period. We here at Bright Line Eating have the explicit goal of making BLE the best place in the world to work. We go the extra mile for our clients and we do it for one another, too.

Gina Blancato

CRM and Data Coordinator

Gina is an experienced and dedicated data analyst based in the Tampa Bay area. She has a strong background in database management and providing analytic support. In her role at Bright Line Eating, Gina uses numbers to help the team understand how our customers experience our internet presence, our communications, and our programs.

Gina is a family-oriented individual who enjoys spending time with friends and her teenage son. She believes that quick-wit, sarcasm, and laughter nourish the soul. She’s also a strong advocate for dog/animal rights and has two very special rescue dogs at home.

After learning about BLE from her sister-in-law, Gina read Susan’s book and she knew immediately that BLE was a movement she wanted to support. She has always been committed to creating solutions and offering assistance to improve others’ wellbeing, and she enjoys using her analytical and data management experience to work behind the scenes to help her team accomplish any goal.

Gina Blancato

CRM and Data Coordinator

Tara Bogdon

Director of Program Delivery

Tara’s position at Bright Line Eating involves putting her organizational and project management skills to use with the Program Delivery team. She coordinates with other departments to make sure our customers have the best possible experience.

Tara is perfectly suited for her role because she became a customer herself in June 2015. She weighed 381.2 pounds on her Day 1, lost 150 pounds in a year, and at her one and a half year-mark, she hit the milestone of having lost more than half of what she initially weighed. In December 2015, she emailed Susan and said she’d love to work for her. Things didn’t work out then, but in February 2017, Susan reached out to her to see if she’d be interested in applying for a part-time, temporary position in Customer Support, and she jumped at the chance. She transitioned to a full-time role in June 2017 and started doing a little bit of everything at the company, so she could learn as much as possible. She found she really enjoyed working with the Program Delivery team, and a few months later, she started training to become the Director of the department.

Currently residing in Washington, Tara enjoys swimming, reading, and spending time with her family in her time away from work. She loves her family, and they have been so supportive of her in her Bright Line Eating journey. They are incredibly excited for her and the success she’s found with BLE. She is also very passionate about health and nutrition—she follows the whole foods plant-based way of eating and is a huge fan of Dr. Joel Fuhrman.

The best part of working for Bright Line Eating for Tara is simply “everything.” She loves the people she works with, and she loves the fact that she gets to work for a company she believes in while supporting a program that means so much to her. She loves that she gets to learn, grow, and be creative, and that by doing this she gets to help the Bright Line Eating movement grow. She feels so lucky to have her dream job and still frequently pauses to just take it all in.

Tara Bogdon

Director of Program Delivery

Nadia Briones

CRM Specialist

Nadia works behind the scenes in the marketing department with the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to make sure our email campaigns and websites operate efficiently, and she also collaborates on projects with other departments to help optimize how the company functions. She wears many hats inside and outside of the company.

When she’s not working for Bright Line Eating, Nadia is either singing opera, practicing massage therapy, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, sweating in Bikram yoga, hiking, or learning something! She lives just north of New York City, which has probably contributed to her never-ending need to be in constant motion.

The only thing Nadia loves more than trying something new is the unbelievable amount of love that every person on this team has for one another. It’s a beautiful thing.

Nadia Briones

CRM Specialist

JoAnn Campbell-Rice

Program Delivery Associate & Coach

As part of the Program Delivery team, JoAnn coaches Reboot Rezoom participants on weekly calls, in the Facebook House, and individually.

JoAnn worked for the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation for over ten years as a spiritual care professional, helping people new to recovery connect to their authentic self. She also has a private practice as a spiritual director in St. Paul, Minnesota. She has been in recovery herself from alcohol and other drug addiction for 15 years and joined the Bright Line Eating community in January 2017. When she saw the job posting to join the BLE team, she jumped at the chance.

JoAnn lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her husband Brian (who is an attorney) and has two stepsons who live in Denver and San Francisco. In her spare time, she loves to read and write, spend time at her cabin on a lake in MN, and participate in 12 step meetings and events.

What she loves most about her job at Bright Line Eating is the opportunity to talk with participants and help them realize their own brilliance.

JoAnn Campbell-Rice

Program Delivery Associate & Coach

Kaitlyn Claucherty

Customer Support Associate

Kaitlyn assists potential and current Bright Line Eating clients with any issues they may have. Her ex-wife began working for the company in 2015, and Kaitlyn became curious as to what was so special about this program and what made it different from all the other weight loss solutions out there. Her ex-wife suggested she sign up for a Boot Camp and see for herself. Within a few short months, Kaitlyn was working full time for BLE.

Currently living in Phoenix, Arizona, Kaitlyn's true passion is helping animals—she used to be a veterinary technician, but life led her on a different path. She also loves listening to all kinds of music, marathoning television shows, and collecting tattoos.

Kaitlyn’s favorite part about working for Bright Line Eating is that she gets to work with the world’s most caring and helpful people, while having the opportunity to help others who are overcoming a huge obstacle in their lives.

Kaitlyn Claucherty

Customer Support Associate

Lynn Coulston

Bright Lifers’ House Leader & BLE General Counsel

In her position as House Leader for the Bright Lifers’ House, Lynn spends her days encouraging, supporting, and celebrating our core members—our Lifers. She enjoys getting to know them and sharing in their journeys. She feels privileged to witness so many amazing transformations on a routine basis and is uplifted every day by her connection with the most loving community she’s ever known.

As General Counsel for Bright Line Eating, Lynn also serves as the company attorney. Her job is to facilitate business strategies in compliance with sound legal practices. She uses her judgment and analytical, interpersonal, and communication skills to be an effective guardian of the company.

After fighting her weight all of her adult life with every diet in the world, Lynn joined the second Bright Line Eating Boot Camp in February of 2015. At one time, she was so heavy she couldn’t walk down stairs, and her husband had to bring food up to her every day. The Boot Camp worked its magic and Lynn will be forever grateful. She lives at goal weight now, 103 pounds, fully Happy, Thin, and Free, and can skip downstairs if she wants to. She is proud to say that she has been actively involved in the BLE community almost from the very beginning. In December of 2015, Susan Peirce Thompson offered Lynn the two positions she currently holds and she couldn’t be happier.

Lynn Coulston

Bright Lifers’ House Leader & BLE General Counsel

Chris Davis

Chief of Staff

As Chief of Staff, Chris goes the extra mile to ensure every Bright Line Eating employee has what they need to be successful in their role. Fun fact: she was the first paid Bright Line Eating employee. As a personal friend of Susan Peirce Thompson’s, Chris would check in on her when BLE first started (a very overwhelming time for Susan) to make sure she was taking care of herself. One day, Chris asked Susan how she could help…and by the end of the conversation offered to be her assistant. Relieved, Susan gratefully accepted the help.

Originally hailing from Reading, Pennsylvania, Chris now lives in Rochester, New York. She loves to knit, read, watch movies, explore new places, and spend time with her family and her cat. Her family is amazing and talented! They’re incredibly supportive and loving, and she’s grateful every day that she gets to be a part of their lives.

At heart, Chris is a total geek who loves listening to news and science shows, watching and reading sci-fi, and learning new things. If she could have pulled it off, she would have stayed in college forever.

The thing Chris loves the most about working at Bright Line Eating is positively impacting so many people’s lives, while having amazing opportunities to grow both personally and professionally.

Chris Davis

Chief of Staff

Linden Morris Delrio

Director of the Online Support Community

Linden oversees the day-to-day management and operations of the Bright Line Eating Online Support Community. She’s responsible for setting the loving, supportive, accepting, and non-judgmental tone of the Boot Camp Houses, as well as hiring and training our amazing House Leaders. She also provides complimentary one-on-one consultations for Private Coaching requests.

Linden’s Bright Line Eating journey began as one of the original 40 participants in the very first Boot Camp, back in October of 2014. Like Susan Peirce Thompson, she lost 60 pounds in six months and has been maintaining goal weight since April of 2015. The Online Support Community was a lifeline for her. As the Boot Camp came to a close, she discussed with Susan how she could best continue the kind of sharing and service that had kept her Bright Lines so bright. The rest, as they say, is history.

Currently residing in Vancouver, Linden spends her free time pursuing her creative outlets. She is a brilliant and accomplished painter (primarily pastel and oil), and dedicates the rest of her time to studying jazz music (primarily guitar, cello, piano, and voice).

What Linden loves most about her job at Bright Line Eating are her daily interactions with scores of people who are all at different places along the continuum of the BLE experience. She loves to share her own BLE story because she can hear (and see!) how her own transformation has a profound impact on people’s lives. And she loves to watch how other people’s journeys impact her own as well.

Having experienced much upheaval and disturbance in her formative years, Linden knows that since she has found hope, healing, and recovery in Bright Line Eating, the same transformation is most assuredly available here for others. Though our histories and life experiences may be different, she believes we are fundamentally similar in our humanity and therefore similarly capable of blooming, recovering, and flourishing.

Linden Morris Delrio

Director of the Online Support Community

Angie Denby

Senior Graphic Designer

As Senior Graphic Designer, Angie is an invaluable part of the marketing team. She is always involved in a wide variety of projects and tasked with designing logos, images, web pages, and much more. She’ll soon be redesigning our whole website!

Angie found Bright Line Eating through an online job posting, and learning about the program completely changed her perspective on why dieting is a painful struggle for so many people. It had such an impact on her that she started BLE right away. By the time she was offered the position about a month later, she had already lost 17 pounds!

Currently residing in Michigan with her boyfriend and their two dogs (who she considers family and treats like people!), Angie loves art and digging into the psychology of master painters like Van Gogh, Munch, and Warhol. She enjoys urban hiking around cities and admiring the architectural landscapes. Much of her inspiration is gathered from live music, amazing people, nature, and her incredible family. She feels blessed each and every day to have been born into such a brilliant, motivated, loving group of people.

What Angie loves most about working at Bright Line Eating is the ability to spend her time doing what she loves while contributing to helping people live happier lives. She feels grateful every day to be a part of the BLE team and have the opportunity to witness so many journeys filled with perseverance, hope, and happiness.

Angie Denby

Senior Graphic Designer

Crystal Gomez

Customer Support Associate

Crystal helps past, present, and potential Bright Line Eaters with any and all questions they may have about the Boot Camp and other BLE programs. She has worked in the customer support field for over 10 years and was looking for an opportunity to not only answer questions, but to actually help people and make a difference in the world. Bright Line Eating has given her that opportunity.

Crystal is originally from Arizona; she has lived in Phoenix for most of her life. She recently spent a year working in Las Vegas, but is now back home in Phoenix with her amazing family. She grew up in a very close family and, as the only girl with three brothers, she was never a girly girl. This might be why her daughter would rather have a Thor hammer than a Barbie dream house any day. Crystal’s daughter is her life. She’s happy to say that her daughter shares her passion for reading, and they enjoy a good book together every single night. Reading has always been Crystal’s way to travel the world, go on adventures, and experience the impossible.

Crystal’s favorite thing about working for Bright Line Eating is the opportunity to brighten someone’s day and help them through any rough times they may be experiencing. Being a part of this amazing program, which is truly changing lives for the better, is a dream come true. But BLE doesn’t just change the lives of our amazing members—it has given Crystal the opportunity to make a better life for herself and her daughter, and for that, she will be forever thankful for Susan and the entire team.

Crystal Gomez

Customer Support Associate

Steven Gomez

Chief Technology Officer

Steven runs the technology department at Bright Line Eating. In doing so, he builds and maintains a lot of the BLE online resources, as well as the company infrastructure.

Steven has been fixing (or breaking, and then fixing) his family’s and friends’ technology for as long as he can remember. His foray into web design started with building websites for local artists in his native Arizona, and he quickly fell in love with helping people find their voice online. He met Susan Peirce Thompson through our Head of Content Creation, Jenn Moon, who is a former student and close friend of Susan’s. He helped develop Susan’s original website, and then the Boot Camp sites, and now he runs all of Bright Line Eating’s technology.

Steven is a big fan of art of all kinds, especially music. He particularly enjoys going to see his favorite bands in concert.

For Steven, the best part about working at Bright Line Eating is the opportunity to help Susan Peirce Thompson spread her life-changing message to a worldwide audience.

Steven Gomez

Chief Technology Officer

Julia Harold

CRM Specialist

Julia works behind the scenes managing our CRM system (Infusionsoft) to make sure everything in place so our emails and websites operate seamlessly for our customers. She plans, dreams, designs, and executes all things related to the marketing engine that is growing Bright Line Eating into a worldwide phenomenon.

Currently residing just outside of Asheville, North Carolina, in the intensely beautiful Appalachian Mountains, Julia is lucky enough to live in an environment ripe for her favorite hobbies: permaculture and organic agriculture. She’s working on consistently growing a very large portion of the whole-food-plant-based Bright Line meals that she eats.

The thing Julia loves most about working for Bright Line Eating is, simply put, everything – the team, the mission, the customers, the work, the learning…even the insane pace. Well…maybe not the insane pace.

Julia believes the best kept secret in the world is that we all love one another. Deeply. Completely. All of us.

Julia Harold

CRM Specialist

Arianna Hillis

Chief Operations Officer

As Chief Operations Officer, Arianna makes sure the daily operations of the company run smoothly and that the various departments and employees have everything they need to succeed.

Arianna found her way to Bright Line Eating through her personal connection with Susan—she’s her cousin! In 2014, Susan attended a family dinner in Berkeley, CA and told them all about her BHAG. Arianna had a gut feeling that Susan would change the world. Of course, that BHAG gave birth to Bright Line Eating.

Fast forward to April of 2016: Susan asked Arianna to work with her and the BLE team to plan the First Annual Family Reunion. Spending time with everyone in San Diego during the event was life changing for Arianna. Afterwards, she found she missed the team terribly and returned home with a void in her heart. The feeling was definitely mutual—everyone missed her, too. Luckily, not long after the Family Reunion, Susan asked her to join the team.

Arianna was born in New York City, but was raised in the San Francisco Bay area. She loves spending time with her family and being outdoors. In her rare moments of free time, she enjoys hiking, entertaining family and friends, arts and crafts, traveling, and working on her golf game.

What Arianna loves most about her job at Bright Line Eating (besides working with the awesome BLE team members) is knowing that the work we do is positively and significantly impacting our communities—a rare and humbling opportunity, indeed.

Arianna Hillis

Chief Operations Officer

Samantha Hughes

Technical Support Associate

Samantha assists Bright Line Eaters with any technical issues they might be having, from logging into their course website to accessing the BLE app on their phones. No matter the issue, she makes sure our clients have whatever they need to succeed in their weight loss journeys.

Samantha first learned of Bright Line Eating around the time the second Boot Camp was getting started. She had been having binging issues while trying to stick to Dr. Fuhrman’s Eat to Live program, but then she saw a forum post from someone talking about BLE and how it helped her food addiction. She looked into it and signed up for the emails, but a loud inner voice was saying that it wouldn’t help, it was too expensive, and it was too restrictive. When she took the Susceptibility Quiz and learned that she’s a 10+ on the scale, she knew she needed to give this Bright Line Eating thing a try.

In July of 2017, Samantha listened to the Bright Line Eating audiobook and quickly made the decision to jump all-in with a Boot Camp. But two weeks later, her father passed away unexpectedly. She broke all of her Bright Lines, fell face first into all of her feelings, and didn’t look back for a long time. Fortunately, she was eventually able to get through it, and when she did, she listened to her heart of hearts. She knew, without a doubt, that BLE was her home. So she joined Bright Lifers, did another Boot Camp, and then jumped into Reboot Rezoom. She certainly hasn’t had a perfect journey, and it isn’t nearly over yet. She’s still holding onto her teddy bear, and she’s not giving up anytime soon.

Samantha is a limited licensed counselor living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her work has been primarily based in person-centered therapy. The person-centered therapist learns to recognize and trust human potential, providing clients with empathy and unconditional positive regard to help facilitate change. She firmly believes in helping other people build up and recognize their own strengths, skills, and supports.

For Samantha, the best part about working for Bright Line Eating is being able to work for a company that she believes in wholeheartedly. She knows BLE is helping so many people struggling with food addiction, and she loves the fact that she gets to be a small part of that.

Samantha Hughes

Technical Support Associate

Lori Lang

Social Media Specialist

Lori’s role at Bright Line Eating is to create, nurture, and expand our social media communities. She works hard to find new and innovative ways to spread the word about the BLE movement and how we’re changing lives.

The journey of coming to work at Bright Line Eating began for Lori during the October 2015 Boot Camp, in which she was a participant. Susan Peirce Thompson sent out an email explaining that the response to the launch was overwhelming and Lori immediately replied, offering to assist with social media if help was needed. It turned out help was most definitely needed—within an hour, she was on the phone with Ocean Robbins and Susan, jumping aboard the launch team. Responding to that email truly changed the course of her life.

Lori was born in Chicago and currently resides in Seattle, Washington. She has two amazing children (ages 17 and 23), an incredibly supportive husband, a pug, and a Newfoundland—there’s never a dull moment in her house! She’s very passionate about her family and her faith, and the ocean is her happy place. If she could spend her time driving up and down the coast with the windows down and the music up, she’d be in heaven.

What Lori loves most about working for Bright Line Eating are the people: both her coworkers and our amazing tribe of customers. In over 30 years of employment, she’s never experienced this level of love, support, and enthusiasm in a company—it’s incredible! BLE has changed her life in countless ways, and she feels honored beyond measure to work with Susan Peirce Thompson and the rest of the team.

Lori Lang

Social Media Specialist

David Lewis

Lead Technical Customer Support Associate

David assists our Bright Line Eating family in resolving any technical issues they might experience during their BLE journeys. This includes troubleshooting why our systems might not be working correctly for customers, helping to diagnose and fix problems on myriad devices and computers, and so much more.

David began his journey as an IT professional nearly 10 years ago with a group of people willing to take a chance on him. Life demanded some major growth and he was fortunate enough to have the willingness to step up and the opportunity to learn. Throughout his personal journey, he’s been lucky to have the right people placed in his life at just the right time. Building these relationships, while working very hard to be the best he could be each and every day, opened a new door and afforded him the opportunity to continue his growth as a member of the Bright Line Eating team. He’s extremely grateful to be part of the family and looks forward to all that is to come for everyone touched by this community.

Fun facts: David is a hopeless romantic, he has no idea what he wants to be when he grows up, and he loves his daughter more than words can express. His goal is to one day fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a racecar driver.

David Lewis

Lead Technical Customer Support Associate

Marianne Marsh

Client Care Partner & Senior Coach

Marianne was one of the fortunate people, many years ago, who received direct help from Susan Peirce Thompson with her own food addiction before Bright Line Eating existed in its current form. As her journey progressed, she kept telling Susan how much she enjoyed connecting with and helping other food addicts. When Bright Line Eating was just getting started, Susan invited Marianne to become part of the team. She then retired from a long and successful career at Cornell University to pursue, as she says, the career here at BLE she was always meant to fulfill.

Together with Linden Morris Delrio, Marianne provides live 1:1 coaching to Bright Line Eaters on the weekly Boot Camp coaching calls. Through these calls, she is able to help those learning BLE way of eating and living by sharing both her knowledge of the program and her experience with her own recovery.

In addition to working with those in the Boot Camp, Marianne also works closely with Lynn Coulston in the BLE continuity program known as Bright Lifers. Her role in the Lifer community is multi-faceted. She finds her outreach role there to be continually fulfilling. Boot Campers and Bright Lifers often have special needs best addressed by personal connections beyond participating in the coaching calls and engaging in the Online Support Community. Marianne fulfills these needs by placing outreach phone calls to struggling members, serving as a temporary food commitment buddy, working out customized food plans with individuals, and following up on questions submitted by Bright Lifers. She’s an active member of the Bright Lifers group and co-facilitates the monthly Bright Lifers’ Roundtable, as well as the Maintenance Monday calls. She can also be heard frequently on the daily Accountability Calls.

Marianne currently resides in Ithaca, New York, where she’s lived since 1981. In 2016, she started spending winters in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, initially to be closer to her elderly mother. She now admits she is a confirmed snowbird and rarely misses the crisp, snowy days of the upstate New York winters! One of the greatest joys in her life is singing, which she sometimes enjoys with her adult son Joe, who is a fabulous banjo player. She also plays guitar and a little bass, banjo, and ukulele. During the summer, her passions are enhanced by waking up to the transcendent sunrise over Cayuga Lake.

Sometimes, Marianne thinks she’s the luckiest person on the Bright Line Eating team because she’s the one who gets to call, Skype, and email people in need to help them with their BLE program. She has personal interactions with people she’s never met, and typically by the end of the conversations, she feels like she’s made a new friend. These connections make her heart sing. She loves the people in the BLE tribe so much she can hardly stand it!

Marianne Marsh

Client Care Partner & Senior Coach

Jenn Moon

Head of Content Creation

Jenn handles a wide range of tasks for Bright Line Eating, including developing and writing content with Susan Peirce Thompson for all of the Bright Line Eating websites, emails, and marketing plans; collaborating to plan and execute launches; managing the Goal Weight Gallery; and assisting Customer Support.

The path to BLE began for Jenn back in college where (thanks to an uncanny set of circumstances) Susan Peirce Thompson was her Psychology 101 professor. In this class, and in the many others Jenn took with “Professor Thompson,” she discovered her passion and aptitude for psychology. Much of Jenn’s writing style was shaped by Susan’s mentorship, making her uniquely qualified to create content for BLE. Fast forward to early 2014: Jenn followed the birth of Bright Line Eating from the very beginning and introduced Susan to her roommate, Steven Gomez, so he could design a beautiful, custom website for her. As Jenn watched the exponential growth of the company and the overwhelmingly positive impact it was having on so many people’s lives, she knew she wanted to join the team.

Jenn wants everyone to know that she’s basically the biggest fan of The X-Files alive and has been a devoted “X-Phile” since age 12. The recent revival was one of the greatest things to happen in the existence of television. She is also obsessed with all things pop culture—her friends affectionately call her the human IMDb.

She has a boundless passion for performing music, with her main instruments being voice, piano, French horn, and guitar.

Jenn’s favorite thing about her job at BLE is being able to work so closely with her most influential mentor and friend, Susan Peirce Thompson, and the opportunity to realize and utilize her creative talents while growing both professionally and as a human being. She has never before been so lucky as to work with such a loving, supportive, intelligent, and dedicated team. And knowing her work is helping to change lives is a unique blessing she never takes for granted.

Jenn Moon

Head of Content Creation

Jeff Pehrson

Customer Support Associate

Jeff mainly does customer support here at Bright Line Eating, but he’s looking to branch into social media work as well. Fun fact: he performed some solo guitar tunes for one of our BLE testimonial videos!

The path to Bright Line Eating began for Jeff many years ago—he has known Susan since she was a teenager. She used to go see his band, Box Set, and they became lifelong friends. They talked about Jeff joining the BLE team when Box Set played at the first annual Bright Line Eating Family Reunion.

Jeff was born in San Francisco and still lives in the Bay Area. Music is his passion. He’s been a member of Box Set for 26 years, played with the Grateful Dead guys in a band called Furthur for 6 years, and played with the Jefferson Airplane 50th Anniversary Band. Jeff has written 13 albums of original music, worked through several record deals, and played everywhere from The Freight and Salvage to Madison Square Garden.

For Jeff, the best part about working for Bright Line Eating is helping people. He’d also like it to be known that his co-workers are amazing!

Jeff Pehrson

Customer Support Associate

Amber Pennington

Data Specialist

As a member of the Program Delivery Team, Amber’s role will primarily consist of working with the Research Team on data and assisting the Director of PD with tasks for that department.

Amber found Bright Line Eating through the Food Freedom video series and knew instantly this was for her. She started immediately and finally broke free of the diet merry-go-round. Not only has she lost her excess weight, but she is also reversing her autoimmune disease!

Amber has worked in accounting and administration for over 15 years in fields ranging from construction to jazz music to criminal legal defense. She also has a passion for health and nutrition. In 2014, she obtained certifications in teaching yoga and health coaching, and she began doing both, which has given her immense personal satisfaction.

Now that all four of her children are grown, Amber and her husband love to travel and spend as much time as possible in national parks and exploring new cities. For the past two-and-a-half years, they’ve lived full time in their small RV on property they own in Northern Arizona, as well as favorite spots in Washington and Texas. Amber has a love for yoga, reading, and playing with her two fur babies, a Siberian Husky and a very sassy cat!

Amber is extremely excited to work for Bright Line Eating and contribute to the Research and Program Delivery teams, utilizing her geeky, organized nature while also being on the cutting edge of true health and wellness!

Amber Pennington

Data Specialist

Crystal Ruzicka

Customer Support Associate

Crystal assists Bright Line Eaters (no matter where they are on their journey) with their questions and requests. She has spent the last six years as a teacher and has a passion for asking and answering questions, which made the role of Customer Support Associate perfect for her.

Crystal learned she had food addiction from a crime show on television. She realized that the character’s description of his drug addiction sounded just like how she felt about food. A quick Google search revealed there was indeed such a thing as “food addiction,” and Crystal’s journey into recovery began.

After trying two 12-step programs, Crystal heard about Bright Line Eating in April of 2018. She signed up for her first Boot Camp within minutes of finding the website. BLE was exactly what she had been searching for: a solid program with beautiful support. Each program she enrolled in just increased her desire to be part of the Bright Line Eating vision.

Crystal lives with her wife and seven children. When she isn’t busy fulfilling her passion for helping others, she loves to read and write. Fun random fact about Crystal: she is fluent in Egg Language.

What she loves most about her job at Bright Line Eating is being able to help people have a smooth BLE experience and being part of a team where you feel like you’re at home from the very first “hello.”

Crystal Ruzicka

Customer Support Associate

Simone Simms

Customer Support Manager

Simone manages and works alongside our amazing Customer Support team, making sure they have everything they need to best support our customers. She provides love, support, and assistance to anyone who writes in needing help on their Bright Line Eating journeys.

Hailing from Rochester, New York, Simone has a strong passion for volunteer work. She volunteers at a local child advocacy center where she is an authorized facilitator in a child sexual abuse prevention program. It’s her goal to spread the word of abuse prevention.

Simone found her way to Bright Line Eating by way of a college course she took several years ago called the Psychology of Eating and Body Image, instructed by none other than Susan Peirce Thompson. When Simone heard Susan’s story and how long she had kept her weight off, she was instantly intrigued. She was 20 years old at the time and had struggled with yo-yo dieting her whole life. Years later, Simone and Susan ran into each other again. Next thing she knew, she was in a Boot Camp, witnessing firsthand the amazing work happening at BLE. She knew she had to get involved, so she offered to help and now she has what she considers to be the best job in the world.

What Simone loves the most about her work at Bright Line Eating is the chance to interact with and help people just like her. She knows what it’s like to be swallowed by food addiction and can relate to many of the people who write in to Susan daily. She wants nothing more than to let people know they aren’t alone and that we at BLE have their backs. BLE has been Simone’s safety net, and she loves being able to provide the same safety net to others.

Simone Simms

Customer Support Manager

Angela Simpson

Executive Assistant to the CEO

Angela’s job at Bright Line Eating is to manage Susan’s priorities and help keep her on track, including managing her ever-busy calendar, scheduling appointments, and keeping her in clear communication with the rest of the team.

Originally hailing from Livonia, NY, Angela graduated from SUNY Geneseo and was working as an Administrative Assistant for a construction company when she came across a job posting for Bright Line Eating. It immediately seemed like the right fit and she submitted her application right away. Luckily, it was the perfect fit for her and for the company.

When she’s not working, Angela spends her time being active. She enjoys playing volleyball and tennis, and she loves jogging and hiking with her dog. She also has a creative side—drawing, fashion, writing, and graphic design are among her artistic passions. Additionally, she is the Event and Marketing Chair on the board of a non-profit organization called KMB for Answers. KMB is dedicated to changing the stigma surrounding eating disorders, raising awareness, and providing support.

What Angela loves most about working for Bright Line Eating is the strong connection the team has developed despite the virtual nature of the company. She feels the love amongst everyone, and it’s a special thing to be a part of. She is proud to work for a company that aims to change the world by helping people who struggle with their food and lifestyles.

Angela Simpson

Executive Assistant to the CEO

Profile - Gretchen Stoll

Technical Support Associate

Originally from Kansas City, Missouri, Gretchen began a modeling career at age eight. By sixteen, she was in New York City, living the life of runways and eating disorders. After graduating college from the University of Missouri, she moved to Los Angeles and Europe to continue this venture. By 2015, she realized that some of the lifestyle choices implemented from a young age were devastatingly dangerous. She quit the industry and shifted her focus to healthy eating and living.

After working with a remarkable group of people during the Food Freedom Launch of 2017, Gretchen was thrilled to be offered a position as a Technical Support Associate. She has worked in customer service since her teens and cares deeply about others and how she can help them. Having worked with Food Revolution Network seasonally since 2016, she gained more knowledge and understanding of the importance of eating healthy, and she loves working with people to achieve their healthy lifestyle goals. This topic is extremely important to Gretchen because of her experience in the modeling industry, where binge eating was a regular occurrence after days of starving one’s self. To be able to provide others around the globe with knowledge and resources is an honor that she holds dear to her heart. Her highest priority is customer satisfaction—to make sure all Bright Line Eaters walk away with a smile and sigh of relief, knowing that the BLE team is providing them with the best support in the world.

Profile - Gretchen Stoll

Technical Support Associate

Tracy Stroh

Boot Camp Concierge

As Boot Camp Concierge, Tracy makes sure that all of the questions submitted by Boot Campers get answered. She helps organize the weekly coaching calls Susan Peirce Thompson conducts for the Boot Camp, and also makes personal calls to Boot Campers to help them if they are struggling.

Tracy’s Bright Line Eating journey began when she signed up to be participant in the February 2015 Boot Camp. She found the program tremendously valuable (and lost a ton of weight!) and had a hunch she would flourish even more with one-on-one support from Susan herself, so she hired her as a Private Coach in July of 2015. Through coaching with Susan and by continuing the BLE program, she has come to experience happiness she didn’t think she was capable of and has uncovered strength she never imagined possible.

Tracy’s favorite part of working for Bright Line Eating is the personal interactions she gets to have with Boot Campers. Helping them one-on-one is an incredibly special experience for her. Social support is one of the most powerful parts of recovery, and she experiences profound satisfaction from playing a central role in supporting our Boot Campers.

Tracy Stroh

Boot Camp Concierge

Erica Stuart

JV/Affiliate Manager

Erica’s job at Bright Line Eating is to generate and develop the promotion of Bright Line Eating in the online universe. She nurtures existing relationships and fosters new connections with like-minded companies. These partnerships are mutually beneficial and drive traffic to the BLE marketing assets. Her goal is to get as many people as possible aboard the BLE train.

The path to Bright Line Eating began for Erica when she met Susan as Bright Line Eating was first getting off the ground. She found Susan’s intellect and her spirit to be magnetic. Erica expressed interest BLE at that time and began to read everything she could about the company because she has had a longtime interest in health and nutrition. She knew what Susan was doing was revolutionary. The timing wasn't quite right for her to make the move and join the BLE team, but two years later, she was ready and super excited about becoming a part of the movement.

Erica resides in Rochester, New York with her two daughters, ages 7 and 9, who are simply the best. They’re full of life and they keep her humble. In her spare time, Erica enjoys yoga, writing, reading, cooking, and gardening, as well as spending time with her daughters. She’s very passionate about healthy living.

For Erica, the best part of working at Bright Line Eating is experiencing the abundant devotion and passion that flows within the team, and she absolutely loves the values that we stand for. She feels incredibly lucky that she gets to work with people who are intelligent, generous, and unstoppable.

Erica Stuart

JV/Affiliate Manager

Sanz Su'a

Social Media Coordinator

As Social Media Coordinator, Sanz interacts with the amazing Bright Line Eating community on our social media platforms each day, offering ideas, support, and encouragement for our online tribe.

Sanz found Bright Line Eating in 2017 when a family member recommended a "really great book" called Bright Line Eating. She listened to the book on Audible and knew this was it—this was going to change her life. No more crazy-making with dieting and promises to "do better tomorrow." No more letting cravings control her life. No more lethargy or feeling limited each day by her body. She jumped right into the lifestyle, losing 57 pounds in the first 11 months, and she has remained abstinent from flour and sugar since July 16, 2017. The greatest reward for Sanz has been the freedom from cravings.

Sanz is a country girl from Wyoming now living in the suburbs of Salt Lake City with her husband and four children. She has never met a self-help book she doesn't like, never leaves home without a book (or three), and has read more than 50 novels aloud to her children. She’s a podcast junkie, a public library supporter, and a minimalist (as much as one can be a minimalist in a home with six people!). She loves to hike, snow ski, water ski, play volleyball, go camping, visit National Parks, play card games, and is a lover of words, writing, and wide-open spaces. She also insists she's an introvert even though everyone else seems to want to argue otherwise.

Sanz's favorite thing about being part of the BLE team is the talented, inspiring, and lighthearted group of people she works with each day. She feels very grateful to be involved in work that is transforming lives.

Sanz Su'a

Social Media Coordinator

David Thompson

Co-Founder & CFO

David provides financial management, risk management, and general guidance to the Bright Line Eating business. He and Susan Peirce Thompson live in Pittsford, New York, with their three beautiful daughters.

As the company was getting started, it was clear that David would be the best person to take the position of CFO. He has an MBA, a CFA charter, and 10 years of experience doing business valuation work. He eventually transitioned into working full time for Bright Line Eating in early 2016.

While David is only a 3 on the Susceptibility Scale, he successfully used Bright Line Eating to come down from a peak weight of 250 pounds (two very intense years in a corporate environment, studying for the CFA charter, and three young children will do that to you) to now weighing less than 200 pounds. Which is not too shabby, as he’s 6’3” tall.

In his spare time, David enjoys ice hockey, golf, scuba diving, deep sea fishing, and unwinding at late night movies. He has a wicked sense of humor, but most people don’t figure that out until they’ve known him for a long time.

David’s favorite part about his job at Bright Line Eating is that he feels the work he’s doing is helping a lot of people.

David Thompson

Co-Founder & CFO

Susan Peirce Thompson

Founder & CEO

Susan is responsible for most of the strategic thinking here at Bright Line Eating. She sets the direction, charts the course, and does the big-picture vision work. In addition, she is the face and voice of BLE, appearing in our videos, as well as summits and interviews, as the spokesperson for the company. She’s responsible for a lot of the content, but she happily accepts help with that these days. Susan also currently runs the business, so the leaders who manage each division at BLE report to her. As such, she spends a lot of time in cross-functional leadership work to ensure everything flows smoothly.

The inspiration for Bright Line Eating came to Susan in her morning meditation on January 26, 2014. Originally, the idea was to write a book called Bright Line Eating, but Susan soon discovered that she had to build a “platform” first, in order for the book to reach a large audience. So she started an email list and it grew exponentially from there. Susan was the original BLE employee and for the first 11 months, it was just her doing everything by herself on top of raising three little kids and a full-time career as a tenured psychology professor. Needless to say, she’s very grateful to have a team now.

Susan was born and raised in San Francisco, California, and currently lives in Rochester, New York, with her husband and their beautiful daughters. She’s really enjoying working with her husband David, who is the co-owner and CFO of Bright Line Eating.

What Susan loves most about Bright Line Eating is that her passion for the work pours up and out of her effortlessly every single day, like a never-ending wellspring of energy, purpose, and drive. It’s completely congruent with who she is to do this work. BLE is the perfect culmination of everything she’s ever done or experienced in her whole life, and it feels to her like every day she’s lived on this Earth has led her to this endeavor – to building this movement.

Susan is on a mission to alleviate the suffering and frustration of people who are unable to get their eating under control and lose weight. And she loves that we’ve created a program that’s really working to change people's lives. She loves watching her ideas turn into concrete realities. She loves building a happy, thriving, well-functioning team. And she loves creating a company that’s the way a place of work ought to be – where people are trusted, respected, valued, and well-compensated…where people get to live and work in their genius zone.

Susan Peirce Thompson

Founder & CEO

Sonja Waters

Engagement Specialist

Sonja works with the Bright Line Eating Marketing, Program Delivery, and Research Teams to improve participants’ retention, engagement, and satisfaction with all BLE programs and services. She spends all day, every day with the BLE community to encourage participation and connection.

As a living testament to how well Bright Line Eating works, Sonja started her BLE journey on May 27, 2017 and is approaching maintenance after releasing 168 pounds! She lived for decades morbidly obese (over 300 pounds), but now she’s a runner and has completed three 5k races and a half-marathon! Her life has been completely transformed.

Sonja considers connection to be the cornerstone of her success. Food addiction can be so isolating—shame and guilt run rampant. Sonja wants to teach her fellow Bright Line Eaters that connection and support erase those feelings of shame and guilt over time, providing the pallet to color a beautiful new life.

Sonja's journey and her commitment to connection make Sonja hugely successful in her role at Bright Line Eating. What she loves most about her job is listening and offering encouragement and support to those who ask for it, as well as a good ear for those who need to vent. A good day for her is when she has made a difference in someone else’s.

Sonja Waters

Engagement Specialist

Bill Wilson

Web Developer

Bill helps develop and maintain the online architecture used to communicate the Bright Line Eating message to the world, including the Bright Lifers and Boot Camp websites. He found his way to BLE through his long-standing friendship with Susan Peirce Thompson and her husband David. Fun fact: Bill and his wife Lori read in the ceremony at Susan and David’s wedding back in 1999. Fast forward to 2015: Susan and Bill talked about her vision and his passions, and they agreed that working together would be mutually beneficial.

Bill currently lives in Valrico, Florida, where he enjoys a wonderful relationship with his family—a fulfilling source of encouragement, happiness, and strength. His main interests are computers, reading, and carpentry; he’s also very passionate about his religion, the Baha’i Faith.

The thing Bill loves most about working at Bright Line Eating is that he gets to communicate knowledge to others in a very meaningful way—BLE allows him to assist in educating others about the psychology and neuroscience of sustainable weight loss. Ultimately, he appreciates the incredible opportunity to be a part of solving the worldwide obesity epidemic.